The “Tidal Wave on Wheels” of the supercar world recently had a newly tuned, slightly more racy version added to the lineup.

Words by: DUNCAN QUINN
Photos by: LUCAS NOONAN

The Bentley GT. Now in “Speed” edition (as if the others weren’t enough to require you pack a fresh supply of underwear for the problems caused by that lead right foot…).

The “Tidal Wave on Wheels” of the supercar world recently had a newly tuned, slightly more racy version added to the lineup. Ok, so supercar is a little strong. But the stretch is not as far as you may think in the real world. Sure a new Lamborghini, Ferrari or Porsche would probably have the edge on a track, but blatting from A to B in the USA you’d be hard pressed to make your case.

With the new GT Speed weighing in with 616 horses from its top of the line W12 engine she canters to the 60mph line in 4 seconds dead, and will gallop on to a panty wetting 205mph (obviously on that airstrip your pal owns, not the I95). That’s not to be sniffed at. No matter what fancy piece of Italian machinery you are piloting.

Test-Pilot-For-A-Day this time around we took our tango orange chariot for a blast through the cobbled and potholed streets of Gotham and out to the fresh air of the mountains north of the city. Its always a good test of any beast to see how she reacts to the city and then the open road, with a few serious twisties thrown in and the odd pit stop for a cup of fine coffee.

Some weren’t too keen on the orange livery, but I found it very du jour and liked it a lot. After all, its not as if the GT is really that understated much as it tries to be. So why not put a wolf in wolf’s clothing for once?

Sublimely comfortable, fast as all hell, surprisingly good around the twisties and perfect for that out of town affair…

Our tracker was a saturnine fellow of zero words and less expression. Not once had he smiled, or hit really any note in the register of human emotion.

Words by: MICHAEL LUDERS

Our tracker was a saturnine fellow of zero words and less expression. Not once had he smiled, or hit really any note in the register of human emotion. But, he was damned good at his job—eerily so. To watch a tracker at work is to watch miracles unfold. In other times these men would have been burned as witches. I once saw him pick from a herd’s prints in the dust just which belonged to the zebra I had shot badly and follow it for hours until we found and killed it. That he got on well with Colin was further astonishing: years before they had tried to kill each other fighting on opposite sides of the war.

Here he was already on the track of my buck, the sun’s brow barely over the trees. It was chilly and a mist covered the ground. I chambered a round and followed him before he could disappear into it. Any shot, should the chance come, would be quick, an almost involuntary reaction to darting movement. The dense forest was surprisingly green despite seven years of drought and the only reason the bushbuck still flourished here. Much of the other game had been driven off, like the waterbuck, which needed the same wet habitat, just more of it.

We’d stalked an hour at most before I became aware my guide was uneasy. There was an over-whelming stench of a barnyard. It was not offensive, rather like damp, rotting hay. Our tracker halted us with his hand and stood and listened. Colin shushed me with a finger to his mouth. He pointed ahead, urging me to see what he saw. It wasn’t very thick in this section along the dried river, and the sun came through easily. If there were game here, I would see it. I had spent a lifetime chasing it, I knew how to look. Yet all I could do was shake my head. The tracker was still frozen and Colin insistent. He came over to me making no sound underfoot and said softly, “Elephant.”
“But where?” I said.
“All around you.”

Our go to piece this summer is the Boating Blazer.

Words by: COREY M. KNIGHT

It’s the weekend and you’re headed to a swanky soirée in the hills. LA dress code dictates “cocktail chic” which loosely translated means “see duncan quinn”. Our go to piece this summer is the Boating Blazer. Uber preppy or rock n’ roll edgy, the Boating blazer is another iconic piece in the modern man’s wardrobe. It was once commonly worn playing or attending traditional sports with stripes or piping representing your club or school colors. The striped variety became popular among British bands in the mid-60s and the mod revival of the 70s. The Who’s Pete Townshend and The Kinks rocked this look and created a whole new audience that followed the trend.

It was an untypical week of exceptional experiences and toys.

Words by: DUNCAN QUINN

It was an untypical week of exceptional experiences and toys. After all, its not often you end up in a Bungalow at Chateau Marmont. With a matte tango orange Aston Martin Vanquish in the garage. And the most hooligan of motorcycles on the market parked in the path leading to the front door. Even if you are very, very, lucky this is a time to breathe deep and celebrate every second of life.

Breathing deep is a necessity with toys of this calibre. You almost need a certificate in yogi breathing to maintain a steady 60 bpm or less while all around you is becoming a blur coupled with a cacophony of glorious sound that causes your seratonin levels to peak even as your adrenal glands work overtime.

I had riden the RSV-4 APRC Factory from LA to Monterey for Pebble Beach in 2011 and it proved to be the ride of a lifetime. I had forgotten what an utter hooligan machine this bike is. Despite my tepid feelings for its looks in terms of delivery it is simply second to none.

Drawn to all things African since I was a kid reading H. Rider Haggard, I had wanted to follow in the footsteps of childhood heroes…

Words by: MICHAEL LUDERS

When I drove over the border into Zimbabwe, the country was barely nine years old, the signs of civil war still everywhere. Bullet-holes scored the outer walls of the farmhouses spotting the savannahs. The guards at Beit Bridge, the crossing, wore fatigues and carried AK-47s menacingly. I was in the Third World there was no doubt, this especially clear after paying a small bribe to ensure my guns would not be confiscated. I had been told by my host, Colin, to keep my mouth shut during the entire border processing. It took over three hours and despite the inherent suspiciousness of him answering questions that were thrown to me, looking back on it, I’m glad I didn’t have to speak. No doubt I would have blundered. We were doing nothing wrong, of course, but the setting – right out of a mercenary war thriller – and the characters, were such that we might the hell as well been. There was a game to be played and my host knew it better than I. Finally the boom was raised and we drove over Kipling’s “great grey-green, greasy” Limpopo River – with my guns.

I was here to hunt. Drawn to all things African since I was a kid reading H. Rider Haggard, I had wanted to follow in the footsteps of childhood heroes, men who left the rich comfort and safety of castles and country and ventured into unknowns. These men were eccentric, cads and frauds with pasts to escape, but they all were adventurers: men like Burton and Speke, Bell and Taylor, Selous and Sutherland, Scots and Englishmen who explored the Dark Interior, with all the myth and metaphor that it brought. I, too, wanted to stare down charging lions in the scorching heat, retiring later to impala steaks and bourbon by the campfire, hippos lolling and snorting in the nearby pools.

Of course this was all schoolboy romanticizing. I mean, really, can such expeditions be mounted today? Well, yes, actually they can. Not an expedition really, there’s nothing Dark about the Continent anymore and the source of the Nile has long since been discovered. But, one can still pack a steamer trunk and a gun case and spend a month in the bush shooting for plate and sport.

So here I was finally, the guest of a cool-headed, quick-witted bush pilot and professional hunter, himself the son of farmer-soldier killed in a plane crash during the Rhodesian conflict, sitting by a campfire with a drink. Was this the fulfillment of that romantic ideal? Certainly there were no hippo gamboling in the pool nearby, but that was because a kiln-like spell had dried it to sand. The hippowere long gone. But in every other respect, I felt as if I stepped into the pages of King Solomon’s Mines, or any of the other books that captivated me as a boy.

Oh, and one other thing. Unlike the impala or the springbok, the bushbuck tends to become very dangerous when cornered or wounded. Usually one thinks of Africa’s Big Five as the representatives of death in the bush. Animals that lie in wait, or double back behind the hunter, before stomping or mauling him to mush. But the bushbuck deserves honorable mention. Despite its lithe daintiness, it isn’t meek and it’s topped by two very sharp horns. They put up a ferocious fight against the cheetahs and leopards that prey on them and they’ve been known to charge from hiding and give right back to the hunter. Fair play as I see it. Though I was a bit nervous in anticipation of such an encounter, I was also very excited.

Chateau is simply without peers.
For it is utterly unique. From the
tiny room 62, to the fantastical
penthouse 64 and everything in
between.

Words by: DUNCAN QUINN
Photos by: DUNCAN QUINN

He had no professional license, but was named one of the “three best architects of 1957″ along with Frank Lloyd Wright and Mies van der Rohe.

He drove a red Ferrari with the license plate VROOM.

His name was Craig Ellwood.

And he designed two of the Bungalows at Chateau Marmont.

For old blue eyes it was Bungalow 4. For John Belushi, Bungalow 3.

For me no matter where it is at Chateau Marmont, it is to immerse yourself in a deep pool of cool.

Here’s a tip. When you pick up this new novel by Mohsin Hamid —
his follow-up to his multimillion-
selling The Reluctant Fundamentalist
—don’t make the mistake of using it as a how-to-get-rich guide.

Words by: ROBERT COLLINS

Here’s a tip. When you pick up this new novel by Mohsin Hamid — his follow-up to his multimillion-selling The Reluctant Fundamentalist — don’t make the mistake of using it as a how-to-get-rich guide.

If you do, well, admittedly you might find yourself, like the book’s protagonist, living in sudden luxury in a heavily fortressed house in a city that looks and sounds much like Hamid’s own native Lahore in Pakistan. Hamid studied at Princeton and Harvard Law before giving up life as a McKinsey and Company management consultant in Manhattan to become a full-time writer. His breakout novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist has just been turned into a movie starring Kiefer Sutherland and Kate Hudson. I think we can say the guy knows how to make a dollar.

I could get into the specs and numbers, carbon fiber and fancy trickery.
But ultimately this is about a visceral experience.

Words by: DUNCAN QUINN
Photos by: LUCAS NOONAN and DUNCAN QUINN

For the purists among us James Bond actually drove a Bentley. But in the land of imagination and the warped history of the victor he drives an Aston Martin.

And with the new Vanquish one could be forgiven for understanding why he may want to take her for a roll in the hay. Or several rolls in the hay.

For in the flesh she has some of the most beautiful lines you can imagine. Lithe and athletic. With an undercurrent of menace. Like Giselle Bundchen. With a black belt in MMA.

Frankly I’d take her over Moneypenny any day of the week.

A while back I’d slid myself into an older relation of hers, the DBS. Only to discover that we didn’t get along as well as I’d hoped.

But the Vanquish is a whole different story.

I could get into the specs and numbers, carbon fiber and fancy trickery. But ultimately this is about a visceral experience.

And tested by that yardstick this car is a head and shoulders above most. She’s not the fastest, nor the most lithe.

But there’s more to life than 258 mph.

The litmus test of the public also raised the approval flag. People came over to chat. We’re in awe of her beauty. And the raspy snort of her V12.

In the canyons of Malibu she had her metal tested and passed with flying colors. On three wheels at one point, allegedly

And she wags her tail just enough even with the traction control firmly in the ‘ON’ position to give you a jolly without the hospital trolley.

All in all worth every penny of whatever she costs.

Because if you have to ask, you can’t. And if you don’t, it doesn’t matter.